wanting to build a shopping cart system.

dreamworldaccess · #1 (**permalink**) 07-22-2007, 12:38 PM

Hello I'm wanting to build my own shopping cart system from scratch and to sell it as an optional product service for my company. It would have a mix between virtual reality such as Site Studio, a clear image of a product in live motion, as well as a musical background and a persons voice in the front ground telling all about the product. allowing the website visitor to buy the product at anytime or calling about the product they are looking at.

I think I have most of it all taken care of, Just asking how well it would sell.

vwebworld · #2 (**permalink**) 07-22-2007, 08:45 PM

Interesting concept... voice telling the viewer about the product.

Musical background is usually not accepted well by viewers if it plays without the viewer's OK. So, that should be optional.

~Roland

carpediem · #3 (**permalink**) 07-23-2007, 02:36 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dreamworldaccess

Just asking how well it would sell

Hi dreamworlaccess,

You can sell anything if it's marketed correctly. You would need to do some research on your competitors to find your unique selling point.

Hope that helps,

Danielle

RollerBall · #4 (**permalink**) 07-23-2007, 05:13 PM

Sounds like an absolute nightmare. This potential user wouldn't touch it with a bargepole. Sorry - always tell it like it is my Mum said......

dak888 · #5 (**permalink**) 07-23-2007, 05:21 PM

I couldn't imagine trying to maintain a large catalog of products. Individual voice overs (who want's to list to me) would be daunting at best. How much would it cost to hire someone professional to do it? I really don't want to think of that price tag either.

It would probably work better to highlight a product or two but not a whole shopping cart.

DaK

bj · #6 (**permalink**) 07-23-2007, 05:38 PM

Did you know that only roughly half the people in the US who are online are using a broadband connection? Your bandwidth requirements would most likely leave out anyone without broadband.

I wouldn't care to limit my market that much. The more people who can access the cart, the more chances I have at a sale.

As an OPTION for certain featured products and with clear links around that section for those who don't have broadband it might work.

Have you also thought about how bandwidth intensive a site like this would be? I imagine you're talking dedicated hosting just to run a minimal product base.

Bottom line is that This might work in France, but not in the US.

redeemed · #7 (**permalink**) 07-23-2007, 10:33 PM

Hi Dreamworldaccess,

Can you you please what you are tryingto do in more detail as I dont understand what you mean exactly.

Thanks,

R

conceptsti · #8 (**permalink**) 07-24-2007, 12:39 AM

just wondering how that would work? if i have 2500 items, i would need to have 2500 videos?

i could see how some people would want it tho

NetPhr3ak · #9 (**permalink**) 07-24-2007, 10:35 AM

I agree... I hope your client plans on having unlimited bandwidth usage (if they plan on receiving a decent amount of traffic). As far as the shopping cart is concerned, consider using Actinic. Their product is decent and you don't need a ton of programming experience.

As far as a virtual sales assistant, I would suggest sitepal. The program costs 9.95 a month and they offer a free 15 day trial. I'm not sure the two will integrate, I know you'll be able to use the virtual assistant on the site, however I'm not sure it will function properly in your shopping cart. Contact both companies, they'll be able to assist you. I hope this was helpful. Goodluck!

Eric

MarkGatESS · #10 (**permalink**) 07-24-2007, 11:26 AM

It sounds like a cool idea - integrating two existing systems (i.e. - SitePal and a shopping cart system). Although, be careful that SitePal doesn't slap a copyright infringement charge on you for your "virtual salesperson".

I also feel as other posters do that this system would probably eat up bandwidth. Although, SitePal states that their virtual person will work on PC & MAC and that it'll work on everything from dial-up to broadband connections. I guess they must have solved the bandwidth issue.

It seems that your business is to offer service - such as building a shopping cart for a customer's site. If that's what you're intending with this, then maybe you'd consider striking a deal with SitePal? Why reinvent the wheel when SitePal could integrate their virtual person with your shopping cart system? Try and get an exclusive contract with SitePal for this integration application. There was a company that did something similar with Macromedia for the transparent flash "pop-ups" you see on many sites like Yahoo! and newspaper sites. They have an exclusive patent or copyright with Macromedia (I guess now Adobe) so you can ONLY get that kind of flash ad through them. Perhaps you can do the same. If someone wants a shopping cart integrated with a virtual salesperson, they'll have to go to you.

Probably doing some market research would help you. See how popular SitePal is and how it's used on other sites. See if SitePal's characters would attract or deter visitors from using a site.

Don't know how much that helps. I think it would be something attractive to customers that are selling automobiles, games/game systems, DVD movies, teen fashions - things like that.

NetPhr3ak · #11 (**permalink**) 07-24-2007, 12:06 PM

Well put Markgatess! I'm sure dreamworld can still sell the shopping cart as long as he doesn't sell the assistant as his own. I don't believe the sitepal logo can be removed from the system. Again, I'm not sure I may be wrong. As far as working out a licensing agreement (or something similar with sitepal) I think that's a wonderful idea.

@dreamworld: If you do a decent amount of business and plan on selling a few carts a month, I'm sure sitepal will work something out with you. If you have any coding experience I'm sure you can develop something similar to sitepal on your own. I would definitely scratch the music. Besides the music eating up tons of bandwidth, it could also turn customers off. What One person likes, Ten others hate. I guess it would be a great idea if the customers could customize their experience, something similar to myspace's profiles. Again, that's going to cost your customers tons of cash a month.

One final thing to consider is standards. At times it can be difficult to build something this detailed from scratch and still validate. Yeah...yeah....yeah.... I know some people on this forum might crucify me because I'm a standards preacher, but more and more browsers are conforming to web standards. Regardless of what others say...following web standards is the safest way to go. Doing so makes it much easier to update the site, etc. Hey...you never know when you're going to be required to update the site (or someone else). You can find out more about accessibility and webstandards at w3.

DrTandem1 · #12 (**permalink**) 07-28-2007, 02:57 AM

As for videos and voiceovers I say no. Besides the bandwidth issue, which is already a deal killer, there are other turn-offs.

People like audio and video to be entertained with the exception of a sample of music they may want to buy, but that again is to be entertained. Most would rather see static images of the product along with a brief written description and possibly more details.

Even if you were to have a voiceover with no video, many have their speakers disabled. Who would do the voiceover? Good voice talent doesn't come cheap. I think the production time for such a shopping cart would be cost prohibitive.

The point of selling on the internet is to keep overhead low. There really is no advantage in integrating audio/visual with a shopping cart. There are plenty of companies that already produce the ads needed. Clicking "Buy Now" on any number of free shopping carts available is easily added.

I don't even like the videos on the news sites. I'd rather read the article and look at an image or two, if needed.

Peopleunit · #13 (**permalink**) 02-22-2008, 07:42 PM

DrTandem mentions his distaste for having to watch videos and what not on News Channels, etc. Me too!

Yesterday I installed an extension to my Mozilla based browser, called "NoScript" - and it effectively does the job of managing this sort of thing on each of the sites you visit.

Basically, it adds an option on your drop down context sensitive (right click) menu - and controls enabling and disabling of scripts for each site you visit.

The default is that all sites start out as scripts disabled (which in itself provides for some security when visiting sites on questionable intent, as well as faster browsing in general).

If I need javascript enabled for a site, I go to the "right click" menu and enable scripting for the site either temporarily, or permanently (white listing it).

Interestingly enough, for any given webpage there might be scripts being called from multiple off-site domains in addition to the site you're on. Cool! - No-Script handles each one individually.

I know I kind'a went off track in mentioning this, but hey, its good to know so I thought I'd mention it, you know? :-J

NOW THEN.........

As for adding web 2.0 and multimedia elements to an ecommerce solution, I must say, that it deserves some merit so long as its applicable to the product. For touring a piece of real estate online, sure. For selling Beanie Babies, probably not so much. The value of the product would have to be in line with the additional costs involved as well.

And if you do decide to offer it, I believe these elements should be user invoked, taking into account the users connection speed, etc.

In addition to the elements you mentioned, a PDF download, or some other info a visitor can download for viewing offline could be useful. I have a couple product brochures saved in my email for products that I may one day decide to purchase... if they ever get the price down far enough.

mtheory · #14 (**permalink**) 02-28-2008, 12:50 PM

I just finished developing a Flash based shopping cart platform to offer with my design services. Because it's Flash I can pretty much integrate any form of media or third party api seamlessy into sites I design in Flash without compromising presentation.

The initial response has been overwhelming.

Flash Store - MTheory - Branford, CT -www.mtheorit.com

DrTandem1 · #15 (**permalink**) 02-29-2008, 08:10 AM

MTheory, While your Flash site appeared to operate well on my IE browser, it failed on my Firefox browser. The left side "Liquid Commerce" failed to display. On the right side, only the item images appeared. No text at all. The cart buttons were blank.

mtheory · #16 (**permalink**) 02-29-2008, 02:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DrTandem1

MTheory, While your Flash site appeared to operate well on my IE browser, it failed on my Firefox browser. The left side "Liquid Commerce" failed to display. On the right side, only the item images appeared. No text at all. The cart buttons were blank.

Tested fine in Firefox. You may not have the latest Flash player in your Firefox browser.